


Deprivation

by b1shounen



Category: Motorcity (Cartoon)
Genre: Car Accidents, It's implied that they're together, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-31
Updated: 2020-12-31
Packaged: 2021-03-11 00:54:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,808
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28446465
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/b1shounen/pseuds/b1shounen
Summary: He blinked; eyes burning. Maybe he should shut them for a while. No!He couldn’t, absolutely couldn’t sleep; if he slept, they would come back, and they always come back.___Rewrite of my very first ao3 posted story.
Relationships: Mike Chilton/Chuck
Comments: 2
Kudos: 8





	Deprivation

**Author's Note:**

> Hello!  
> This is a rewrite of something I wrote in 2012 and it was the first thing I ever posted on here.  
> Obviously, I have grown as a writer since then and I decided to try my hand at rewriting it to get down my original vision.  
> It's amusing to me, since the original story only had about 500 words and it's evolved into this. 
> 
> I really hope you enjoy it!  
> And for all that do read this, I'm so happy people still consume Motorcity content!  
> It left us too soon. ):

His curtains were drawn, not that it mattered in the slightest. It was the middle of the night, after all, even the surrounding lights of the city had been dimmed to a dull glow, signaling that day had quickly devolved into the late night. Mike let out a sigh, breathing in the smell of motor oil and metal- the essence of nearly everything he held dear, almost everything. He blinked; eyes burning. Maybe he should shut them for a while. ****No!  
  


He couldn’t, absolutely couldn’t sleep; if he slept, they would come back, and they always come back.

_________________________________________________

Mike was never certain how it had gotten this bad, it started out small, with a little bad dream here and there. He would, on most occasions, dismiss them, shrugging them off in order to forget about them. He just wanted to forget.

Lately, however, that’s all it seems to be. With every doze, even just the slightest bit of a consciousness lost, he saw it, Mike screamed- and then he was awake once more. He was slowly losing his groundings, increasing the uneasiness in the Burners, his family. A worry that started out nearly insignificant, just a tiny implant in their minds that something was wrong with Mike, but then the days turned to weeks, weeks to months; what Mike was reduced to had finally set in. His appearance was the main notifying factor of it all, his gaunt and pale face, the dark bruises that surrounded the underside of his eyes. Then they noticed his behaviour; it had deteriorated. He had let Mutt, his prized possession, get not only dirty but also horrendously damaged and neglected. Even though struck with concern deep to their very core, the affrighted crew stayed silent.

No one had known what had caused any of this to materialise, absolutely and utterly no one and Mike intended to keep it that way. It was the first time he had messed up since he came down here to Motorcity, the first time he had lost focus, the first time he was careless – and it was the first time he hurt someone.

His nightmares were frequent, even before this incident. Mike couldn’t even recall the last time he had any semblance of a pleasant dream but it had never affected him like this. They had never caused him to avoid sleeping, to detest it, to fear it. That’s what it truly boiled down to; fear. Pure terror that he couldn’t escape, nothing could stop it.

With a deep sigh, exhaling the smoke from a cigarette that Mike swore he would’ve never touched, he leaned against the smooth metal of the wall that made up the garage of their home. He flicked the ash of the burning end, staring at the glowing ember that seemed to warp and dance under the curtains of the darkened night in his weary eyes.

He took another deep drag of that aforementioned never-before-touched cigarette before dropping it in the puddle of water that accumulated from the slow drip of a loosened pipe above. Sighing out his lungful of smoke as he made his way back inside his home, another place he feared that had once brought solace.

Mike stopped momentarily to gaze at the others in the living room, giving a quick wave and half smile that was so foreign to see on his face as he worked his way up their squeaky stairs and made that hard right to his bedroom door. The door slammed behind him as he shrugged off his formerly favoured jacket and let it fall in a crumpled heap to the floor. Walking over the scattered wrenches and other miscellaneous tools as he made his way to the bathroom.

“I look like shit.” He said, tousling his hair and giving a forced smile to his reflection that he scoffed at in disgust. Turning on the tap of the sink; he let the water run cold, watching it distort in his bleary vision just as it had done with the cigarette. Mike dipped his hand into the downward stream of water, letting the cold prickle gooseflesh along his skin. Good, he could still feel; He inhaled deeply, leaning above the sink before cupping his hands under that rush of water that chilled him to his bones and splashed it on his face, the force behind it being more than enough to get his bangs and the neck of his shirt a long way passed damp.

It was coming.

Mike wasn’t ready, he never was, but it was inescapable tonight. He needed to sleep. It had been 93 hours since his last night of rest, albeit a short one, and tonight he had no choice but to face his fear head on. He had been avoiding it to his best effort, many cups of coffee, many nights of wandering along the near empty streets under the diminished light of the neon signs on his side of Motorcity. However tonight, there was no way to circumvent the inevitable. 

With a slow and staggered gate, he made his way toward his bed, kicking off his boots and working away at his belt. His head was filled with a dense fog, akin to the swirling cloud of smoke that he had expelled from his lungs, oh how he wished for a way to breathe out the haze that consumed him.

Managing to finally slip free of his jeans, he fell back onto his creaky spring mattress. A bed that had never felt comfier than it did in this exact instance. His limbs became that of lead and unable to lift while his eyelids had seemed to refuse to budge, no matter how much Mike fought against the sleep that he knew was coming, that was here.

_________________________________________________

At first it was only darkness, a suffocating inky blackness that coated every surface of Mike’s eyes and made it impossible to see, no matter how many times he blinked to try and clear it. Even the smell around was revolting, managing to nauseate Mike in spikes with every inhale until he was on the brink of vomiting.

It only took a few seconds, but to him it felt like hours for his hearing to return. It came in waves of slowly rising volume, a running but slowly dying motor, the clang of metal that resounded as he kicked in front of him before he thought of trying to stand. He heard the wheezing of breath that was chased but couldn’t be caught. The sputtering of an awful cough that was loud and assumedly painful. Mike was scared.

He pressed his knuckles into his eyes, furiously rubbing them to have any semblance of vision return to him. Frantically he began to search for the maker of these frightening noises. Heart pounding up, up, up into his throat until he, himself, couldn’t breathe. Mike slapped his hands on the floor around him, cutting his hand on something before finding leverage to pull himself upright, his leg was broken. Wincing at the pain that shot up through him as he swallowed the bile it elicited. He needed to find the owner of the cough-

It resounded the encompassing surroundings once again and it sounded worse. Someone was out there, someone needed help, someone needed **him**. Why couldn’t he find them, why couldn’t he **see**. Mike’s heart picked up in speed as his breathing failed him, stuttering them as he tried to search. Limping and moving forward as best as he could with his broken leg hindering him…but he couldn’t. With nothing but fear and desperation clouding his mind, he dropped to his knees. Causing another jolt of pain to travel up his spine, but it didn’t matter.

He cleared the rubble to his best effort as he crawled toward the cough; it was getting **bad**. Mike was closer now; he could hear whimpering now and a wheeze that accompanied it. His eyes were finally starting to focus, he could see! Though it wasn’t much, he was thankful for the little he could. It was getting easier to see the closer he got, a smile twitching at the corners of his open mouth from which his shallow breaths escaped. Mike pulled himself to stand once again, stumbling over the clutter of distorted and twisted metal.

He froze. Eyes widening in horror, mouth going slack, devoid of the any trace of the phantom smile moments prior.

Chuck was laying there admits the crumpled and smoking metallic remains that could only belong to Mutt. Mike wanted to look away, squeeze his eyes shut and pretend he wasn’t seeing what was indeed in front of him. Hot tears pricked at his eyes that he tried to swallow down, breaths wavering and even more unstable than before, as his lips began to tremble. He couldn’t move.

But Chuck was there, what had happened? Mike couldn’t remember- where had he been, why wasn’t he there to protect him, why-….He **was** there… He had caused this.

Chuck’s left forearm was snapped, the bone protruding only slightly, but to Mike it was worse. His chest was trapped under a particularly heavy looking piece of debris. It was then that another bout of wet and bloody sputtering pulled Mike from his stupor. Scrambling toward him at a speed that felt too slow, desperately ripping the offending hunk of metal away before dropping down to look at Chuck once more.

He was breathing, but not well, and his eyes were squeezed shut. He was dirty, coated in mud, oil, and blood- and Mike was scared. The threatening tears finally spilled, racing hot paths down his cheeks as he softly touched Chuck’s…..It was too cold.

Mike opened his mouth to speak, but no words came forth. He pleaded within himself, to whom or what, he couldn’t tell you. Begged to be able to speak. He needed to tell him- needed to tell Chuck he was sorry. That he was sorry and that he-

Mike awoke with a start, sweat coated him and drenched his mattress. Immediately, before any clarity could return to him, he sat up. Franticly searching around him for Chuck until he realized that, no, this wasn’t the area of the crash. It was his room. His dark, messy, and empty room. With a shuttered sigh, Mike sobbed. Rubbing his hands into his eyes, he needed to stop this. But how?

After a moment, he was able to haphazardly piece together what remained of his composure. Glancing at the clock that burned a red “3:46AM” into the nearly blackened room. Mike sighed and raised himself off his uncomfortable and sweat stained bed, jerking on his pants and grabbing his jacket as he walked out of his room and made to head down the stairs. Maybe a cigarette would help him calm down.

As he strode down the hallway, the creak of an opening door startled him. Still riled from the continuous nightmare that had plagued him once again earlier, he jumped before whipping around to spot the cause of the noise. In the doorway leaned Chuck with his hair pinned back, something Mike was sure he was the only one who got to see. “Hey there.” He said with a slight smirk.

“H-“ Mike cleared his dry throat, eyes glancing down to Chuck’s left arm. No evidence of the accident was present besides a small, raised, and warped scar. “Hey, what’re you doing awake? It’s late- er… early.” He huffed out with an awkward laugh. He and Chuck haven’t really spoken since they recovered from their injuries, every time Mike had tried, he was filled with shame.

Chuck ‘hmm’ed as he surveyed Mike’s appearance, causing Mike to fluster. He knew he was disgusting, probably smelled awful it too. “Where are you going?” Chuck deflected, ignoring Mike’s question with one of his own. “You don’t look good.” Mike couldn’t help the bubble of embarrassment that left him in a strained chuckle.

“I know…I was going to..ah..” He hesitated for a moment, waving his hand through the air in search of what to say. “I was going to get some air.” Chuck nodded, though disbelief shone from his eyes.

He let out a sigh, straightening up before gesturing toward the door. “Come in here, we need to talk.” Mike’s heart dropped, lead filled his throat and he tried to swallow around it to no avail. He gave a weak nod before padding his way through the door that was opened for him. His eyes were trained on the floor as he walked over to a chair Chuck had placed in front of his desk to take a seat.

A stifling silence filled the air for what felt like too long, thoughts scattered through Mike’s mind as he sought out what to say. Biting hard into his bottom lip, he wrung his jacket in his hands. What could he say? What could he do? He shouldn’t be here, not after everything. He didn’t deserve to be here, he- “-ing like this?”

Mike jolted, sitting up rigid despite not having notice that he had slumped forward to begin with. His breath was shaking still, and his chest still heavy. Mike sputtered out a “Huh?...” after another lengthy bout of silence. Chuck let out another, tired sounding, sigh.

“Why are you acting like this? Everyone is worried, **I’M** worried!” His voiced raised, causing Mike to flinch. “You’re not talking to me, or anyone, at all lately! You haven’t gone for drives, you haven’t even been here! But no one ever knows where you are- what is going on with you!?” He was breathless when his words died out. Was…was he crying? Guilt pooled in Mike’s gut, it made him feel sick. He thought that if they didn’t see him and what he was becoming. What he was deteriorating into- they wouldn’t worry.

“I’m….I’m sorry..” Mike mumbled, licking over his chapped and bitten bottom lip before continuing. Sight fixed to the floor, hoping that staring at the discoloured tile would allow him to build the courage he needed to say everything he was afraid of- “I’m scared, Chuckles… I.. I can’t hurt you anymore- I **won’t** hurt you anymore. If I’m not around then I-“

“Shut up.” Chuck cut him off flatly. “Is this what it’s about? The accident that happened almost a year and a half ago?” _Had it really been that long?_

“Mike… We’ve talked about this.. I’m okay, it’s…” Mike felt arms wrap around his shoulders, his head being pulled to lay against Chuck’s chest as he ran his lithe fingers through his matted hair. “It’s okay, everything is okay…” Mike bit his tongue, forcing back the tears that threatened him, though his voice betrayed him.

“I’m sorry….I don’t want to- I can’t…” He swallowed “Chuck, I can’t take it if you get hurt again..” He mumbled against his chest, nuzzling into his shirt. Chuck hummed, reverberating throughout him and it soothed Mike immensely.

“You won’t hurt me, you didn’t hurt me to begin with.” Mike moved to get away, to interject, but Chuck pulled him closer and shushed him. “It was an _accident_ , Mikey…” and it was true. Mike couldn’t argue because he was right. With a sigh, a softer one this time, akin to an exhale, he was finally able to breathe out of stored pain and stress that haunted him. Mike nodded, closing his eyes and letting himself be comforted. Those soft and gentle fingers returned, massaging his scalp as they carded through his hair, all while Chuck rocked back and forth, shifting his weight in a rhythm that calmed Mike to a point he hadn’t reached in close to two years.

Before he knew it, he was dozing off. Drifting between conscious states, but he wasn’t afraid this time. He wasn’t afraid. Mike had been the one who swore to protect Chuck all those years ago- but look at him now. Chuck let out a gentle and whispered laugh. Patting the top of Mike’s head to get his attention. “Hmm?..” was all he could say in response, he was so tired. So, so tired…

“Let’s get you to bed, okay?” Chuck’s voice was honey, warm and sweet against Mike’s jagged fears and it soothed him to his core. He gave a slight nod, assisting Chuck as he attempted to lift him and guide him to his own bed. Mike didn’t care that he wasn’t the cleanest, not registering nearly anything besides the soft feather down pillow beneath his head and the warmth that enclosed him as Chuck held him once again to his chest.

His ministrations continued until Mike drifted off, finally passing the threshold to unconsciousness. However, this night was different, they didn’t come back.

There were only sweet dreams to be had.


End file.
